Here goes a
movie for you… take a really hot comic, pair this hot comic in
a buddy cop movie with a straight guy who isn't funny at all,
basically playing an ambitious, tough, take no prisoners type
cop, then throw in a villain that nobody's ever seen, at least
until it's time to see him then wrap it all around a plot that
is as thin as wax paper. Melissa McCarthy and Sandra
Bullock in 'The Heat'?
Psyche your mind… because we're talking Kevin Hart and Ice
Cube in 'Ride Along'. The similarities between those two
movies, and a hundred other movies… are shocking, at least in
the fact they are both a showcase for the comedic talents of
their stars, and the results are pretty much the same as well.

Ben (Hart) loves him some Angela (Tika Sumpter). And he
should love Angela because Angela is fine. Super fine
even. The question that one would ask is that why would
this super fine woman be equally in love with this tiny, crazy
obnoxious, under employed young man whose passion is
videogames? Oh wait, it's a movie. Now it makes it
sense. The problem with this love is Angela's hard core
cop of a brother James (Cube) does not like Ben. Not
even a little bit, for mostly the reasons we already
mentioned. Ben, however, thinks has the inside track to
earning James respect. Ben has been admitted to the
police academy and he will soon be a cop, just like James, but
James doesn't think Ben has what it takes. But if Ben
can impress James, say like during a day long Ride Along,
James will gladly give the couple their blessing. Madcap
shenanigans shall ensue.

Now if you've seen the trailer for 'Ride Along' you pretty
much know what's going to happen as the trailer exposed the
majority of the jokes in this movie. In fact, the young
lady sitting next to me in the theater was actually calling
out the jokes, play by play style, as Kevin Hart was reciting
them. That was intensely annoying. Anyway, James
wants to embarrass and belittle Ben while on their ride along,
Ben wants to show he's a big man... James wins.

All James
really wants to do, outside of embarrassing Ben, is eventually
bust big time mobster Omar, who nobody has ever seen, except
for the picture of him when he was nine years old. Why
they have a picture of this cat when he was nine is anybody's
best guess. Another odd thing is that this picture of
nine year old Omar looks just like Laurence Fishburne when
Laurence Fishburne was in 'Cornbread, Earl and Me' back in
1974. Go figure.

You know the routine. Eventually these two men have to
come together, set their differences aside and form some kind
of bromance for the greater good. A damsel in
distress, shootouts, explosions and bro love will ensue.
Just like in 'The Heat'. No damsel in distress in that
one though. Just some dude.

More than likely 'The Heat' and 'Ride Along' were being
prepped for our local theaters at roughly the same time so
it's not like the makers of one movie saw the other movie and
decided to go that particular route. Nope, it's just
that the makers of both movies saw other movies and instead of
making anything remotely fresh or new or inventive, they went
with the tried and the true and the tired and these are the
movies we got.

But guess what? Tried and true and tired isn't
necessarily a bad thing in this case, mainly because 'The
Heat' had Melissa McCarthy and 'Ride Along' has Kevin Hart,
and because of these wise inclusions both movies were really,
really funny. 'Ride Along' might not have been quite as
funny to me as it was to the lady sitting about ten seats in
front me, as she was losing it in hysterical laughter so tough
that I thought the usher was going to have call the
paramedics, I mean I really wanted to see the movie that she
was seeing, but it was funny nonetheless.

The narrative supporting Kevin Hart's genius was generally
pointless, just a series of loosely connected events to allow
Mr. Hart to freewheel his way through the movie, with breaks
taken out in between the various events such as the occasional
shootout or to show Tika Sumpter in her underwear, or Tika
Sumpter's abnormally long legs or how well Tika Sumpter looks
in a really tight tank top. Director Tim Story's action
sequences are functional, and the supporting performances were
solid, and by solid we mean Ice Cube was required to snarl a
lot, which we all know he can do since most of us have seen
his Coors commercials, John Leguizamo was in this movie doing
something, Laurence Fishburne was inspired for the three or
four minutes he was in this movie and Tika Sumpter lounges in
her underwear as well as anybody. Ever. This must
be made clear.

What they need to do for the sequels for both movies is call
it 'Ride Along with The Heat' and then drop Sandra and Cube,
like have them both get killed in the first five minutes while
on their honeymoon, which gets rid of our straight men, and
see how Kevin and Melissa do on their own. That probably
wouldn't be much of a movie either, but I bet it would be
funny.